I’ll save you the details on the numerous concepts we considered before this one, but it took a lot of meetings, with a ton of back and forth that resulted in more constraints than options. The solution came to me at the most annoying time possible; in bed, around 12:30 pm, eyes closed, and half asleep. It was one of those moments you hear songwriters talk about where they have to jump from bed and write it all down before deep sleep could ever be achieved. Here’s what that late-night insanity looks like on paper:

To translate the above idea into English, the ad would be a series of vignettes representing different dates, to be filmed from above and organized chronologically as if we could be moving through a day. Each setting would fade into the next as the script (read as a voice-over) flows from date idea to date idea.

We had one week to build eight scenes, which included the building of the set with all the faux finishes, collect all the props, assemble, and polish. I was constantly in a state somewhere between fun and panic the whole time. We cut, drilled, painted, textured, erased, and tried again.

On Wednesday afternoon, three days before the shoot, we finally got our first glimpse of how cool this might actually be. The concrete on the wine tasting scene was looking like a bar top, and the door the opened onto the painting lesson scene actually functioned. This glimpse of fruition acted as inspiration to push through the final two build days, and gave us some much needed motivation.

I left the warehouse Friday night around 9:00 to run the last errand of purchasing all the food needed for each scene. Every last bone in my body was completely exhausted, but the excitement of the following day still made it hard to sleep. When the alarm clock rang at 6:00 am on Saturday morning, that same excitement seemed to be missing, and the exhaustion had taken over fully. However, once I arrived at the shoot I was quickly reinvigorated. The lights were being set up, and the camera was in place and ready for action. The shoot itself was relatively calm, and went off almost without a hitch! We shot each set of scenes with minimal issue, and as we came to the last pass, it occurred to me that this might just turn out okay.

Like a kid anticipating Christmas morning, I counted down the days until the final product was delivered. It had been a week since we finished shooting, and I knew that this 45 second video that summarized a shocking amount of work would be arriving sometime within the next few hours. After a few too many cups of coffee and several failed attempts at productivity, I heard the chime of my inbox and saw exactly what I’d been waiting for: